US sends disaster relief teams to Iraq

WASHINGTON - The US has deploying a disaster response team to Iraq to help distribute humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of people who have been forced from their homes in the fresh wave of violence in the country's north.

US Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said Monday the team will help speed food, water and other life-saving supplies to Iraqis.

Much of the assistance will go to thousands of members of an Iraqi religious minority group known as Yazidis who have been trapped on a mountaintop in northwest Iraq by Sunni militants with the Islamic State group.